Link
by Jessa4865
Summary: Despite their petty arguing, Olivia and Elliot discover there's still something connecting them. EO COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

Link 1/2  
Jezyk  
Spoilers: Anything current  
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine.  
AN: Although I've written untold numbers of stories for other fandoms, this is my second SVU fic. Comments welcome, but please be gentle!  
AN2: Personally, I kind of felt the writers totally glossed over everything that had been going on with Olivia and Elliot, especially with the seemingly out of place friendship in Scheherezade. So I'm pretending they weren't all buddy-buddy again. It's not that I want them to not get along (although it sure is fun when they fight); it's that I want to see how they patched their relationship back up.  
O/E - consider yourself warned!

Chapter One

They weren't really a group that hung out much, although whether due to the horrors of the cases they worked together or the unmentioned, pervasive lack of self-esteem that united the four, none could have said. Yet one night, after a case no one wanted to remember, the four detectives wound up gathered around a table in a bar.

Elliot hadn't had much to say in general since Olivia's return, but when she thought about it, she couldn't remember the last time he'd really talked before she'd left either. He sat nursing his beer, doing such a good impression of not wanting to be there that Olivia wondered why he'd bothered coming with them. Olivia sat across from him, deliberately checking herself on how much she drank for fear of the loose lips that accompanied intoxication. Her conscious mind honestly had no idea, not even a clue, of what she'd say to him if she were drunk, but still knew enough to fear it. Unfortunately she was concentrating so heavily on not getting drunk that she too had lapsed into a miserable silence.

Munch had thankfully been talking more or less nonstop since they'd left the precinct. Fin was listening, interjecting the occasional reality check when he could, but Munch in a rant about big brother was not to be dissuaded by one lone voice of reason.

Fin cast a sidelong glance at Olivia, nudging her with his elbow. "Feel free to jump in anytime." Of all of them, Olivia was usually the only one who could stop Munch, which was due primarily to the stunning smile she would flash that stopped most men, including the paranoid detective, dead in their tracks.

By the time she looked up, however, Fin had already given up on getting an answer. Olivia immediately went back to staring at her beer.

Munch shook his head at Fin, actually cutting his diatribe short in an effort to prove that he was paying attention to something besides the sound of his own voice. "Why bother trying to interact with them? They only pretend to get along when Cragen's looking."

It may have been the mention of the captain's name or perhaps the unnatural pause in the conversation, but something caught Elliot's attention. His head jerked up as he looked between Munch and Fin. "What?"

More out of habit than real interest, Olivia unconsciously mirrored Elliot's movement, her question coming out at the same time as his. "Huh?"

Fin chuckled at the twin reactions of the two who would undoubtedly be particularly offended at the idea they were so much alike, but otherwise ignored them both. "And yet they still spend too much time together."

Elliot stared at his friends for a moment. He didn't like that his friends were talking about him. He didn't like that they were evidently making fun of him. He really didn't like, his eyes finding Olivia's confused face, that he wasn't even sure he could count her as one his friends anymore. "I'm getting another beer." He stood up, abandoning the almost full, lukewarm beer he already had, and crossed over to the crowded bar.

With Elliot gone, Olivia's beer ceased to be so fascinating and she looked up to join in whatever conversation Munch and Fin were having. But rather than talking, they were looking up, their faces a mixture of vague apprehension and uncertainty. She turned to see what they were looking at and immediately regretted it. She snapped her eyes back to her bottle, wishing she'd never looked up. But it was too late; the image was already burned into her brain.

The bad thing about cop bars was that cops tended to congregate in cop bars and the bad thing about cops congregating in cop bars was that cops were always welcome. Even, Olivia though with a grimace, the ones she really didn't want to welcome.

Olivia took a sip of her beer and realized, as a wave of nausea rolled over her, she'd be better off with water since having to deal with Dani Beck, or worse, Elliot and Dani together, was liable to make her toss her cookies. She stared at her beer, willing it to magically turn into a bottle of Evian. She felt eyes on her and instinct told her to look up. Munch and Fin were staring at her, far too interested in her expression for her liking. "What?"

Fin groaned and looked down. Munch smiled at her, a suspicious expression for him. "Olivia," he motioned past her, "this is Dani Beck."

She kicked Fin under the table for not warning her that Dani and Elliot were coming over. She bit back the bile that rose up at the thought of the woman who'd replaced her so quickly and so effortlessly. She hoped she was smiling when she finally looked up. "Yeah, we've met."

There was a momentary crack in Dani's obnoxiously friendly smile. "I don't recall you mentioning your name."

Olivia took a long swallow of her beer, suddenly wishing it were stronger. "I heard yours." It could have been the completely flat tone of her voice or her not particularly friendly words, but either way, Dani's gaze shifted sideways, looking to Elliot in doubt. Elliot smiled back at her like an idiot, apparently unaware he was witnessing a female pissing contest.

Dani's smile was in place when she turned back, although she pointedly didn't look in Olivia's direction. "Mind if I join you?"

Elliot slid into his seat across from Olivia, the distance between them seeming to Olivia to be an endless abyss. "Sure, pull up a chair."

Olivia stood up, almost knocking Dani over in her haste to get away. "Why don't you sit here?" She motioned toward the dark back of the bar. "I saw someone I want to go talk to." She hadn't, of course, but she wasn't about to sit there and watch Elliot stare at Dani and smile like a simp. He'd never smiled like a simp at her. Shed always figured it was because he wasn't a simp, but she was stating to wonder if it was really because she wasn't a blonde.

If anyone noticed or cared that she was leaving, Olivia didn't want to know. She wasn't even sure if she wanted anyone, especially Elliot, to notice because she sure as hell didn't want to have to explain what she couldn't quite understand - why she was mad at Elliot in the first place. Fortunately for the effectiveness of her unplanned, last minute escape attempt, she did spy a guy she knew. Although she usually made a practice of not dating cops, Nick had been one of the few exceptions. He was handsome and friendly and, if she remembered correctly, far more interested in her than she had been in him. She couldn't remember why she hadn't liked him and so, joining him made her little lie all the more believable.

And although she hadn't been seeking attention from Elliot - or anyone else - she reveled in the huge smile and warm hug Nick gave her. She had never gotten such a welcome from Elliot, not that she'd really expected one, but after having been away for so long, it would have been nice. Olivia tried to focus on Nick's words, if for no other reason than to keep her attention off the table she'd abandoned, but her mind kept wondering if Elliot was looking. She laughed at her own stupidity, telling herself that it didn't matter. She wanted to know if he felt guilty watching someone who was actually happy to see her. She wanted to know if maybe he would realize just how unwelcome he'd made her feel. She wanted to know if he had even noticed her departure or if he was still staring at Dani with a doe-eyed love-struck face better suited for a teenage girl.

Nick asked her to dance, and judging from the tone in his voice, she knew he'd asked more than once before she finally noticed. There weren't a lot of people dancing, more than she typically expected to be in a cop bar, and she actually remembered having no desire to pursue a relationship with Nick, although she still couldn't remember why, but she agreed anymore. He served a purpose. She told herself it was because she still wasn't ready to go home and because she wanted to feel wanted and she swore to herself that it had absolutely nothing to do with the irrational idea that it might make Elliot as jealous as she was, which was particularly irrational since she was absolutely not jealous of Dani Beck.

Which left her at a loss as to why she was amused to see Elliot alone at the table when she and Nick brushed by. She felt like she'd won a contest when Nick put his arms around her because she knew Elliot was watching her the whole time. It really hadn't been her intent, but she found herself feigning even greater interest in Nick, dancing much closer than she wanted to, even allowing his hands to roam over her.

Eventually it was the roaming hands that reminded her precisely why she hadn't wanted to see Nick again. It took more than one attempt, including a threat, before Nick finally took the hint. Olivia stopped at the bar for a fresh beer before returning to the table. She was prepared to see Elliot gloating, since her pathetic, ill-fated endeavor to make him jealous or angry or whatever she'd intended unconsciously had resulted in her even more pathetic return to Elliot's side to keep Nick away. But as she slid into the booth, she noticed Elliot's eyes were dark and his expression hardly victorious. Everything in her said to take the victory and run with it, to let her point be made silently. But then she started to think his anger was really over Dani's departure rather than her own and she couldn't let it go. There was just something about Elliot that brought out the immature, catty side of her personality.

She looked around for the other woman even though she knew Dani wasn't there. "So where's your girlfriend?"

His expression didn't change much, except for a moment when he flashed between confusion and guilt. "She's just a friend." The simple fact that he denied it, that she'd made him deny it, made him sound like a liar.

Olivia tried to not care. "Sure. Whatever you say." She told herself that people had mistaken her as being Elliot's wife countless times over the years, but somehow that always made her think it was because even strangers saw the emotional connection between them. And that thought made her feel even worse for saying that Dani was his girlfriend because by the same logic, it implied that he now shared that bond with Dani instead.

He narrowed his eyes and leaned on his forearms. "Is there something you want to say to me?"

She sat back, wanting to smirk that she was maintaining a sense of detachment - or at least making him think she was. After a long swallow of beer, she shrugged. "No, not really."

Elliot mirrored her, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest. "Then why are you here?" Angry or not, he wasn't about to give up the fight. For a moment, she felt very much like a perp, facing a controlled, yet nearly not, angry detective across a table that wouldn't provide her with much protection if that thin veil of control was to tear.

"The other tables are full." She looked away from Elliot's intense stare and unhappily discovered that Nick had been waiting for her to do just that.

He appeared at the table a second later, smiling a little too broadly at Olivia. "Change your mind already, babe?"

Olivia grimaced, revealing her disinterest to Elliot and completely ruining any pretense that she'd been enjoying her time with Nick. "No, Nick, thanks."

He sized Elliot up and shrugged. "I'm over here when you do."

She waited until he'd walked away before she responded. "Not in this lifetime." Realizing what she'd said, she looked up to catch Elliot's smirk. "What?"

"Nothing." He seemed far too pleased with himself for a man who'd sat alone and stared while she was dancing.

"What are you laughing at?"

He swirled his beer around in the bottle with such an air of authority that Olivia wanted to slap him. "You can hardly blame the guy for thinking he's getting lucky."

"Why? Because I danced with him?" She tried to tell herself that his chauvinistic interpretation was a good sign, proof she was really getting to him since the remark was so terribly not like Elliot at all - but her goal, the ever elusive one she couldn't even identify, was clearly not to make him mad. Clearly, of course, because she'd succeeded in making him mad and she wasn't satisfied.

"Dancing? Is that what you call it?"

She met his eyes, wondering when she'd completely lost the ability to read him. "What do you call it?"

"Having sex with your clothes on." He didn't seem happy or smug anymore. "Which inevitably leads men to think they're getting lucky."

"Right, and you know this because of your vast sexual experience?" It was a low blow and she knew it, especially when his faithfulness to his wife had always been one of the things she found the most attractive about him. But she hardly had time to feel guilty before he fired back.

"I'm sure everyone looks like a vestalvirgin compared to you."

She refused to let his words hurt her; she refused to allow herself to believe he'd called her a slut. "We can't all be prudes, Elliot, because then you wouldn't be able to lord your vast superiority over us."

He didn't respond and the fire in his eyes told her it was taking all of his strength to keep his composure. His eyes dropped down to his hands, clutched around his beer. The heat from his hands and their death grip on his drink caused condensation to drip, one tiny bit at a time.

It struck her then that those drops were like blood, a miniscule injury from the barbs they continuously hurled at one another. They weren't much, nothing devastating, but when she followed the drop down, it collected into a sizable puddle. And then the meaningless jabs stopped seeming so meaningless. Bits at a time or not, they were still hurting each other. She wanted it to stop before it was too late to fix it.


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: Comments welcome!_

Chapter Two

She lifted her head to say something, to give voice to her thoughts, but he didn't look receptive. It could have been because she'd just called him a prude. It could have been that he really meant it when called her a slut. Either way, she didn't know how to end it. She suspected that she'd been right in the first place - the only was to walk away and leave it, him, behind. But she knew she was no more prepared to do so almost a year after the first time she'd tried. It wasn't just the imperceptible, inexplicable, almost suffocating tie binding her to Elliot; it was just as impossible to leave the job. She loved her job, despicable subject matter notwithstanding. The job was a part of her from the moment she'd been conceived. She'd be damned if she was going to let Elliot chase her away from the job she needed to do to survive. She took a deep breath and promised herself she could take as much as he could dish out. She'd been though far worse in her life than growing away from an old friend. She was strong. She was a survivor.

And that was when it hit her. He was as strong as she was and, without any validation from him, she believed his demons, whatever they were, were as hideous as her own. Unfortunately, they were both so strong it was killing them. He was waiting for her to crack, not so he could hurt her, but so he could crack too. She knew once he broke, should wouldn't have to worry about him attacking her and she suspected his thought process followed the same logic

She knew how to stop it. She knew how to fix it. She knew she was strong enough to break.

She met his eyes again, relieved to see that some of the anger had faded in the silence. "I'm sorry." Two tiny words seemed like nothing, but they were the foundation for everything.

He was wary of her change of heart. "For what?" There was a glimmer of hope behind the suspicion and she prayed to the god he believed in that it was really there.

"For everything."

Her apology was obviously the last thing he expected. He stared at her for a long time. So long she thought he wasn't going to accept her apology. And then his eyes came back to hers. "So am I."

She felt her mouth quirk up into an involuntary smile. "I don't want to do this anymore."

He nodded as he slid to the edge of the booth. "Let's get out of here."

Olivia followed his lead reluctantly. She didn't want to leave just then. Not when they'd made a pathetically tiny bit of headway. She wanted to sit there with him in a nearly comfortable silence and enjoy the feeling that had been missing for years.

As they walked, however, the same blanket surrounded them, allowing Olivia the peaceful quiet to revel in. She felt an odd mixture of novelty and familiarity; it seemed second nature for her to walk shoulder to shoulder with Elliot, but she still wasn't used to him living in the city, because they'd barely spoken the whole time he had.

Elliot was an old fashioned type of guy. He respected women, while thinking it was his job to protect them. He held doors open. He never pressed the chivalry with her and she'd always figured that was for two reasons - the first one being that he knew she could hold her own and then there was always the fact that, for the most part, she wouldn't stand for it. But for some reason, perhaps because of the newfound truce, she appreciated that he continued beside her after they passed the point where he should have turned to go home. She liked that he walked her home. She liked the idea that he wanted to stay with her as long as he could.

And as she turned to face him at her front steps, she was shocked to realize how very close she was to inviting him in. The surprise left her unable to move, let alone think for a moment. When she was finally able to process coherent thoughts once again, she noticed that Elliot hadn't moved or spoken since they'd arrived either. Olivia couldn't be sure it wasn't wishful thinking, or even if the thinking was wishful at all, but she thought she saw her confusion mirrored on his face, as though he'd hoped for a moment that she would invite him in. When his eyes settled on hers, she felt it again - that special zing that resonated deep in her bones, the one that had been there years earlier, the one that was much more dangerous since he was divorced. Their eyes held through a minute that was so charged it felt much longer and much shorter simultaneously.

Elliot was the one to break that time, looking down as he shoved his hands deep in his pockets. Still, he said nothing and made no move to leave. Olivia figured he was waiting for her to go inside.

"Good night." She spoke softly, afraid to break the spell they were under. Part of her wanted to stand there with him all night to reinforce their friendship. Part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind and invite him in despite her better judgment. But her legs followed her rational brain's command to turn away.

His hand closed around her wrist tightly, stopping her from even taking a single step. The physical contact spoke of his desperation, since barring imminent peril they simply did not touch each other. His voice echoed the fear as did his words. "Liv, wait. I want to talk to you." It wasn't that he was making some dramatic declaration of need or love, but for him, for them, it may has well have been. It had been a long time since they'd been able to expose their jugulars to one another and that was precisely what Elliot was doing. He was trying. He was testing to see if she would attack. He knew she could easily rebuff him by saying it was late and leaving him there.

But she didn't. She faced him again, careful not to pull her arm from his grasp. She wanted to hold that tether between them as long as she could. Her eyes searched his for an indication of what he wanted to her to say.

"I don't want to do this anymore either." His eyes slid from hers, darting wildly to look at anything besides her, and she was afraid in the quiet that he meant he was walking away from her.

His hand shifted, loosening form her wrist and lowering to her hand. When she felt his fingers entwine with hers, she actually looked down to see if it was real. Her eyes slowly rose to his face and found he was looking right back at her once again. The hard, tense edge in his expression she'd seen for so long was gone. He looked like Elliot - the man she'd missed so much. His voice was so soft that she had to lean closer when he spoke again. "Don't leave me."

Her initial impulse was to assure him that she never wanted to leave him again. But then she started to doubt that interpretation and decided he was trying to invite himself up. She'd been thinking about the same thing a moment earlier and she feared he'd read it in her eyes or that she'd given herself away somehow. The fear of looking stupid won out and she tried to keep her tone light. "You want to stand out here all night?"

He cracked a smile, telling her that he believed her fake confusion. Then his free hand, the one that wasn't still holding her, came up to brush against her face. She instinctively leaned into the contact, pressing her cheek into his palm and closing her eyes.

"I mean ever, Liv."

The honesty caused her eyes to pop open in shock, but she said nothing. She felt the same way; she didn't want to be separated from him, but she wasn't sure she'd ever find the courage to actually say it.

He stepped forward, taking back both of the hands he'd had on her. One of his arms found its way around her waist and pulled her whole body against his. The other hand held the back of her head, pressing her cheek to his. "I was mad when Kathy left, but I survived it."

Olivia, who'd spent her entire life trying to be emotionally unavailable, attempted to back pedal from the onslaught of emotion until she could get her feet back under her. "You survived just fine while I was gone." She didn't mention Dani because she knew that would only make trouble.

She felt his head shake next to hers. "Barely."

"But you did." Even though Olivia hadn't mentioned her name, it felt like Dani was there between them, despite the intimacy of their embrace.

He pulled back, looking her in the eye. "I don't know if it was your intention or not, but I learned a lesson. I let you go without a fight and I swear to God that will never happen again."

She couldn't help the smirk that appeared. "Isn't it a sin to swear?"

Elliot smiled back. "Considering that I'd kill myself if I ever lost you, I think God will overlook it."

"Don't say that." She put her hand on his chest, although she wasn't sure if it was to defend herself form anymore unexpected declarations or to reassure herself that he really was saying those things to her.

"Please, Liv, promise me." His hands moved to her cheeks, holding her still as his lips brushed her forehead. "I'll beg if I have to." His lips glanced over her cheek.

"You're already begging, El." She closed her eyes as the sensation overwhelmed any logical thought about just how dangerous physical contact could be with him. She felt him, smelled him, needed him.

"I know." His words were barely out when his lips closed over hers. His next words were spoken against her lips, so quietly she wasn't sure she heard them. "Is it working?"

She felt his tongue running across her lips, seeking entrance. She wanted to smile. She wanted to giggle. She wanted to swoon. The very idea, not to mention the feeling, of Elliot kissing her made her crazy. "Something's working." And then she opened her mouth to him.

Once Elliot had touched her, Olivia had hardly been exercising good sense and it had been a slippery slope after that. She wasn't completely sure she would survive if Elliot stopped kissing her; it was as if her lungs would only accept their shared breath - her own wouldn't suffice any longer. And still, perhaps because of all the time she'd spent as a cop, she knew what they were doing was quickly descending into something they shouldn't be doing in a public place.

"El?" She whispered his name, unable or unwilling to pull back long enough to say more. She wasn't even sure what she wanted to say, so it didn't really matter.

Somehow he caught her unspoken drift. "We should probably stop." He made no move to do so, however, as his arms moved around her back to pull her closer. "Or go inside."

Her heart was already pounding; his words nearly made it stop. She was afraid of either option. She was afraid to make the decision herself. But she loved that he was leaving it completely in her hands without trying to lead her in whichever direction he wanted. Reluctantly, she pulled back from the kisses that were more addictive than she'd ever imagined.

The last thing she wanted to do was send him home. She knew she could; she knew he wouldn't argue. He was watching her, hanging on the possibility that she might not send him away. She usually relished the power she could wield over men on her front stoop, but not with Elliot. It scared her to realize he held the same power over her.

She knew better than to think it was necessarily the best idea she'd ever had, but it didn't stop her from nodding toward the door of her building. "You want to come up?"

He stared at her for too long. Long enough that she started to panic. She was reeling, trying to figure out how she'd misread him, how she'd managed to misunderstand what seemed to have been painfully simple words.

Her mouth opened and closed repeated, flailing stupidly as her mind searched for words to fix the embarrassment she'd stumbled into.

But his smile managed to form before her preference for flight kicked in. His hand brushed her hair back again, once again revealing that gentle, nurturing side Olive had always suspected lay hidden behind the tough detective she knew so well. "Yes." He leaned in to land a kiss across her lips. "Yes, definitely."

It actually took her a moment to remember what her question had been. She smiled and took his hand as she led the way up to her apartment. Somehow, in the two or three minutes it took for them to get from the front steps to her door, Olivia had enough time to panic. Although she knew ostensibly his words in the bar had been said in anger, she couldn't stop thinking about them. And she couldn't stop thinking about the fact that she was proving him right by taking him to her bedroom precious little time after he'd called her a slut.

She turned in fear, in heartbreak, in obvious pain, and looked at him, knowing there was no chance he was going to follow her logic unless she explained it and knowing that bringing up their fight wasn't going to end well.

His hands found her face again, his concern pouring out of his eyes. "You know I didn't mean that, Liv. I was just mad."

She stared, wide-eyed, and tried to reconcile the idea that her partner really did know her that well.

His thumbs moved, wiping the tear that had only just started to fall. "I wasn't even mad. I was jealous. I saw you dancing with that guy and I wanted to keep you from leaving with him."

"I wasn't going to leave with him." Exactly as she'd figured, the mention of their words changed her mood and her ability to be open. She shifted her weight back on her heels, leaning back until Elliot got the message to drop his hands. She knew he believed his apology. She knew he'd only intended to rile her up into having a fight with him. But she couldn't help remembering all those insults her mother had hurled at her in drunken rages over the years and she couldn't stop herself from reacting the same way to Elliot's comment - she wondered if really, deep down under all the ingrained decorum and protectiveness, he didn't actually think she was easy. She had to stifle the snicker that threatened to escape at the idea that her partner, who she'd finally acknowledge truly knew her, had arrived at the same conclusion her mother had without knowing her at all.

Her shoulders sagged under the weight of the crushing thought that maybe they were both right. She shook her head at nothing in particular, willing herself to not lose it completely until Elliot was well out of earshot. "I'm sorry for leading you on, but it was a mistake and it's probably better that we end it here." She turned to her door, trying to fit the key into the lock while all of her energy was concentrated on not crying.

His hands closed around her upper arms, reassuring her despite the simple truth that she didn't want his reassurance. His face was pressed into her hair as he spoke. "Liv, please believe me, I'm sorry. I would kill anyone else for saying that to you."

She couldn't face him, but her hands stopped trying for the lock. She recalled the way she'd decided to be the one to give. She recalled the way her plan had worked well. She figured she might as well try it again since she was already broken anyway. "That really hurt, El."

"I know it did." His body leaned closer to her, holding her in as close to a hug as she would have let him at that moment. "And I'm sorry, baby. I'm so, so sorry. I was jealous and I wanted to hurt you because it hurt me to see you with that guy and I promise you I will never say something like that to you again."

"I wasn't going to leave with him." She hadn't intended to reiterate her statement, but it was the only thing that her brain could conjure up. She had never faced Elliot begging for forgiveness.

"I wasn't going to leave with Dani."

Olivia would have thought, given Dani's involvement earlier, that hearing her name would set off another chain of short circuits in her psyche, resulting inexorably in an even bigger fight. Her body was prepared for just that, turning on him so fast that his hands were still hovering where her arms had been a moment earlier.

But rather than the string of expletives that usually found their way past her lips at Dani's mention, Olivia found herself unexpectedly falling forward, throwing herself at Elliot's frame. Her face burrowed into the collar of his shirt without her permission as her arms wound around his neck. It was almost like an out of body experience for her. She felt herself shaking, sobbing, against him, but she didn't feel the emotion. At least, she didn't think she did.

His arms, slowed by utter shock, closed around her. He rubbed her back and told her everything was ok and shushed her and let her cry.

It was then that she realized she'd been waiting her whole life for him, for that comfort, for that love. Not the apology - she'd almost always gotten apologies, perfunctory and meaningless, from her mother, from various other men, from friends, from anyone who'd ever hurt her, even from Elliot. But the warmth and solace and empathy he was offering her was very different.

When she lifted her head, she knew the rough patch was behind them. She met his glance unabashedly. She wasn't ashamed to cry in front of him because she knew he wouldn't think any less of her for it. Offering a tiny smile, she cleared her throat. "I do want you to stay, but not like that, not tonight." Unintentional and unnecessary as it was, she realized it was the ultimate challenge, the real test of how well he could read her.

"Can I stay if I promise just to hold you?"

With a smile that was no longer tiny, she opened her door and motioned him in. "You passed with flying colors, El." She ignored his befuddled face and led the way to her bedroom.

finis


End file.
